Name: Diplomatic Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pint of milk; 5 eggs; 2½ ounces of sweet biscuits; 1½ ounces of gelatine; 2 ounces of sugar; 20 dried cherries; a little angelica; ⅓ cup of sherry; 1 pint of jelly

Why it works: Biscuit and angelica share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 69 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Diplomatic Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

Make a custard with the milk and 4 eggs, reserving 1 egg white.
Let it cool slightly.
Cut the biscuits into small pieces and add them to the custard.
Halve the cherries.
Chop the angelica and add them to the mixture.
Dissolve the gelatine in ¼ cup of cold water and strain it into the mixture.

Set the pudding

Prepare a mold decorated with red and white jelly.
Sprinkle red jelly with desiccated coconut.
Sprinkle white jelly with finely chopped pistachios.
Pour the pudding mixture into the mold.
Refrigerate until firm.

Unmold and serve

Carefully unmold the pudding.
Chop the remaining jelly.
Place the chopped jelly around the pudding before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Biscuit + angelicatop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together69 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,479 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Biscuit + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,874 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Milk + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,332 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Angelica + sherrytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together54 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Egg yolks thicken the custard and help bind the pudding as it sets.
Gelatine: Sets the liquid mixture so the pudding holds its shape when unmolded.
Milk: Forms the custard base, adding moisture and a creamy texture.
Sweet biscuits: Break down into the custard, adding body and a crumbly texture to the set pudding.
Sherry: Adds aroma and a warm, fruity flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine in ¼ cup of cold water and strain it into the mixture. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and then blended evenly into the mixture; lumps or undissolved granules leave gritty spots, and if the mixture is too hot the gelatine's setting power weakens, so the pudding may not firm properly.